THE COVERT FILE/Virginia's Fightin' 29th Gives New Meaning to Citizen Soldiers

The Army National Guard from the 65-plus years ago to the present has changed. Davenport writes that his year with the Black Hawk Battalion shows there has been "no collecive sacrifice, no rationing, no Rosie the Riveter." His superb writing will bring you to tears, will make you think of the sacrifices of young and old men and women from diverse backgrounds whose lives distinctly changed. It will make you mad.

For years, like lots of people, I've driven up-and-down Virginia's highways glancing at roadsigns acknowledging the famed 29th Division Infantry Division.
 
I've seen a movie or two about the Fighting 29th. I know about the national memorial in Bedford, Va. I've even known men who fought in the unit. I've heard stories of those who died on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day.
 
Nothing has been as riveting as reading Christian Davenport's book, As You Were, To War and Back with the Black Hawk Battalion of the Virginia National Guard. This is a well-written, powerful book of a one-year experience of this Washington Post reporter embedded with the Virginia National Guard.
 
Be assured, the term citizen-soldier takes on a new meaning after poring over the 260 pages. It's about time Americans take another look at the heroes who have and are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.
 
Lots of us are guilty of "preferring nostalgia over the present reality." Davenport has done some terrific research and has gotten to the meat of what it means to be in the Army National Guard, fighting for freedom in Iraq and Afghanistan.
 
Actually, the Virginia National Guard, as well as guardsmen from every state, were called to supplement the meager army. Where would the Army be without the National Guard? I know now.
 
World War II "was a people's war, and everyone was in it." This is etched on the granite memorial in Washington. Davenport writes, "16 million had served, from small towns and big cities across the United States. Everyone else at home was affected, everyone sacrificed, everyone knew someone who was fighting."
 

Author Christian Davenport has penned a well-written, powerful book of a one-year experience of this Washington Post reporter embedded with the Virginia National Guard.

The war in Iraq and Afghanistan is quite different. "With (the U.S.) armed forces of merely 2.2 million, only a tiny fraction of the American population saw action in Iraq." The rest of the country was "numbed to the point of indifference by the images on television, inured to the body count, the Iraq War was little more than an annoyance, something that didn't affect them."
 
The Army National Guard from the 65-plus years ago to the present has changed. Davenport writes that his year with the Black Hawk Battalion shows there has been "no collecive sacrifice, no rationing, no Rosie the Riveter." His superb writing will bring you to tears, will make you think of the sacrifices of young and old men and women from diverse backgrounds whose lives distinctly changed. It will make you mad.
 
It is sad, as Davenport recalls one historian saying, that "the military went to combat while the rest of the country went to the mall." How poignant.
 
You must read of the sensitive and heroic stories of Miranda Summers, Ray and Diane Johnson, Mark Baush, Kate Broome Dahlstrand and Craig Lewis.
 
Davenport doesn't dwell on political overtones. As he wrote, they were "the citizen-soldiers, who go when called."
 
As You Were, To War and Back with the Black Hawk Battalion of the Virginia National Guard is published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., and available in book stores and www.amazon.com.